Pater Familias - Children

Children

The laws of the Twelve Tables required the pater familias to ensure that "obviously deformed" infants were put to death. The survival of congenitally disabled adults—conspicuously evidenced among the elite by the partially lame Emperor Claudius—demonstrates that personal choice was exercised in the matter.

The pater familias had the power to sell his children into slavery; Roman law provided, however, that if a child had been sold as a slave three times, he was no longer subject to patria potestas. The pater familias had the power to approve or reject marriages of his sons and daughters; however, an edict of the Emperor Caesar Augustus provided that the pater familias could not withhold that permission lightly.

The filii familias (children of the family) could include the biological and adopted children of the paterfamilias and his siblings.

Because of their extended rights (their longa manus, literally "long hand"), the patres familias also had a series of extra duties: duties towards the filii and the slaves (though some of these duties were not recognized by the original ius civile, but only by the ius gentium, specially directed to foreigners, or by the ius honorarium, the law of the Magistratus, especially the Praetor, which emerges in a latter period of Roman law).

Adult filii remained under the authority of their pater and could not themselves acquire the rights of a pater familias while he lived. Legally, any property acquired by individual family members (whether sons, daughters or slaves) was acquired for the family estate: the paterfamilias held sole rights to its disposal and sole responsibility for the consequences, including personal forfeiture of rights and property through debt. Those who lived in their own households at the time of the pater's death succeeded to the status of pater familias over their respective households (pater familias sui iuris), even if they were only in their teens. Children "emancipated" by a pater familias were effectively disinherited. Should a paterfamilias die intestate, his children were entitled to an equal share of his estate. Where a will was left, children could contest it.

Over time, the absolute authority of the pater familias weakened, and rights that theoretically existed were no longer enforced or insisted upon. The power over life and death was abolished, the right of punishment was moderated, and the sale of children was restricted to cases of extreme necessity. Under Hadrian, a father who killed his son was stripped of citizenship and all its attendant rights, had his property confiscated and was permanently exiled.